A former youth minister at a Levelland church was sentenced on Friday, Oct. 18, to 48 months in prison for trying to transmit obscene materials to a minor.

Trevor Fortner and federal prosecutors had agreed to such a sentence in July when he pleaded guilty to the charge.

U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings pronounced the sentence without comment. He agreed to postpone Fortner’s surrender to the Bureau of Prisons until Nov. 22.

Fortner’s defense attorney, Dan Hurley, submitted several character references from family and friends.

Hurley said Fortner “realizes this was a serious, serious mistake, and he will never, ever do it again.”

Fortner will serve three years’ supervised probation after his release from prison.

According to court records, Fortner responded to a personal advertisement posted by a Lubbock police officer working undercover. The officer, posing as a 15-year-old girl, replied, and the two communicated via email and text messages.

Fortner discussed meeting the minor girl and described the kind of sexual activity he wished to engage in with her. He asked her to send him “kinky pics” and “dirty pics,” and on May 7 he sent her a sexually explicit photograph of himself.

The following day, Fortner was interviewed by LPD officers, and he admitted communicating with a 15-year-old girl and sending her a photograph of himself, which he acknowledged was obscene.